Unemployed Theologian

I came out as bisexual one year ago today. I chose June 30th because I wanted to get the message out before Pride month ended. It was a symbolic gesture, sure, but one that meant a lot to me. I recognized then, as I do now, that coming out as queer also means becoming part of a community of love, support, and solidarity. Over the last year, finding belonging among those who share some of my feelings and experiences has been a powerful force for good in my life. In fact, this June has been the first full Pride month I got to celebrate as an out queer man, and it has been a blessing to be included in this brave, precious, and beloved community. Overall it has been… a year. In many ways a rich and rewarding one, in others a pretty harsh one. On the one hand, my friends and loved ones have been stalwarts of support and encouragement and my family has continued to embrace me without condition or second thought. I recognize how utterly gifted I am in this regard. Too many LGBTQ folks are m...

On the road to living as an out bisexual man, one of the first “coming out” conversations I had was with my seminary friend Adam: a gay, libertarian, Lutheran pastor who was also an extra in the movie Wet Hot American Summer (I often refer to him my “most interesting friend” for those reasons). I wanted to pick Adam’s brain because he, like me, hailed from a conservative, evangelical faith tradition, and had to do the hard work of coming to terms with his sexuality within such a milieu. For Adam, part of that work meant training to serve in a denomination that calls and equips queer people to ministry (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). As I stared down my seminary graduation, and considered my career prospects in ministry, I’d been contemplating whether to transition out of my own faith tradition (Pentecostalism) to one more amenable to my sexual orientation. I anticipated that coming out as queer while worshipping in a charismatic church might be traumatic, and unfortunate...